"You're getting into the culture and the values of the company," he said. "And the fact is the company that we want to be is not the company that we were."

Here's what's changing as Integra reinvents itself:

Management: O'Hara, co-founder and former president of Level 3 Communications, moved to Lake Oswego from Colorado and named his own team to nearly all of Integra's top executive posts. Integra President Jim Huesgen, who joined the company in 2000, is the lone holdover among top execs from the company's early days.

The business: Integra built its enterprise by providing phone and Internet service to small and midsized businesses. Now, Comcast wants that market, and Integra wants no part of a fight with the nation's biggest cable operator. So Integra is shifting up-market, using its fiber network to target larger customers and regional government agencies.

The name: Integra's brand has little resonance in the company's new market, and carries bad connotations from its downturn. So Integra will relaunch next year with new branding and a new name. Integra won't say what it is, but says "Integra" will still be part of its identity.

Kevin O'Hara

Data travels over the Internet along high-capacity fiber-optic cables, which tie cities together electronically.

Integra has a robust fiber network, most of which it acquired when it bought Vancouver-based Electric Lightwave in 2006.

That network was underutilized when the company specialized in serving small businesses. But larger organizations, such as hospitals, big law firms and government agencies, move large volumes of data among different offices in the normal course of affairs.

Such clients are more profitable, according to O'Hara, especially since Integra doesn't have to shoulder the costs of financing new fiber or leasing from someone else.

Having its own network enables the Portland company to compete against larger data carriers, including CenturyLink and Time Warner Telecom.

And O'Hara said the network makes it easier to hold onto clients with better, more reliable service -- and to innovate as technology evolves.

They weren't necessarily interested in owning a telecommunications company -- especially one with poor financial results -- and that left Integra's future in limbo amid industry consolidation.

Searchlight, the private equity firm that bought Goldman's stake in October, specializes in telecom. Andrew Frey, a Searchlight director in New York, said Integra's fiber network was very attractive to his firm.

Searchlight has faith in Integra's new business model, he said, and will bide its time to let the new strategy take hold.

"We plan to be very long-term investors in the business," Frey said. "We are patient, long-term capital."

Peering in from the outside, an Integra rebound isn't yet apparent. The company's third-quarter revenues are flat from the same period last year, and the company is running in the red.

But Integra contends that it's stanched the bleeding, that the company's revenues are stable and that it's generating enough cash to invest in upgrading its network.

Sales to larger companies are growing strongly, according to Integra, albeit starting from a very small base.

"You need to look hard to find that growth," O'Hara acknowledged, "because it is very modest. But we have taken away the downside."

Integra was "ball of clay" waiting to be shaped, according to new chief financial officer Jesse Selnick, who joined the company in March from the Blackstone Group, a prominent private equity and financial services firm.

"The trick is to mold the clay," Selnick said. "And hit your numbers."